Born to Be Wild

Jamie Wyeth. Switcher. 1977

Oink!

Unknown to most, domestic pigs have not lost their wild behaviours despite years of being bred in captivity. They are highly social beings and their groups are hierarchical, with newly born piglets forming dominance relationships within hours.

Pigs spend approximately 75% of their waking time rooting for food; they are opportunistic feeders (they'll eat almost anything!). Contrary to popular belief, pigs are extremely clean animals.Their habit of wallowing in mud to cool off or get relief from parasites led to the erroneous perception of them as somehow 'dirty.' In the wild they select places to urinate & defecate far from where they lie. In intensive farming conditions, however, they do not always have this 'luxury.'

Aggression is the top concern for animal welfare specialists researching domestic pigs since they form stable social groups of sows & piglets. Mixing & introductions of pigs from outside the sounder (group of pigs) can provoke fighting, which is not only psychologically stressful, but can have physical repercussions  in the form of lesions or tail damage, as well as compromising their immune systems & reproductive functions.

Good Reads: Any research from Drs. Temple Grandin or Francoise Wemelsfelder

Good Vibrations:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=387ZDGSKVSg

When Doves Cry

Ectopistes migratorius

         The Case of the

 Passenger Pigeon Extinction

Her name was Martha. She was the last passenger pigeon in existence and died in the Cincinnati zoo in 1914 to join the ranks of the auk, Tasmanian tiger, dodo et al..

So how could this US species, with a population of 3-5 billion (at the time of the European colonisation of America) pass into extinction so quickly, so easily?

Martha and her ancestors required large forests to exist. When the early settlers began to deforest the bird's habitat, the pigeons migrated to other locations, usually farms, to feed. They cause damage to crops and were shot by farmers. But the real damage came when hunters began netting the birds for sale as a food source. So great was the take that by the end of the 19^th c. the birds had nearly disappeared. As they require large flocks to persist, these birds, unable to adapt, never recovered. 

Good Reads:  A Feathered River Across the Sky by Joel Greenberg

Good Vibrations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmPUu-rMpWA

Take the Money & Run

French ad for cod liver oil

amorphous waver-

ing rocks—three fathom
the vitreous

body through which—
small scudding fish deep
down—and

now a lulling lift
and fall—

red stars—a severed cod-

head between twogreen stones—lifting

From, 'A Cod Head'

William Carlos Williams, 1934

Commercial Extinction

Belonging to the family, gadidae and to the genus, Gadus, the codfish has shaped the course of history. In fact, Gadus morhua, the Atlantic cod,  was so popular, and the revenues from its sale so enticing that over fishing finally drove several cod stocks to collapse. In the early 1990’s, in many areas of the world, the Atlantic cod was pronounced commercially extinct.

When a species or population can no longer be fished profitably, it is said to be commercially extinct. Commercial extinction is preceded by population depletion, usually caused by overfishing. After fifteen years of moratorium on cod fishing, populations are showing signs of recovery, but it could be yet another five years until the Marine Stewardship Council   (MSC) can safely certify that fishing cod will not affect its ability to sustain population levels and therefore avoid yet another collapse. Added to that, scientists expect that rising ocean temperatures will have a detrimental effect on breeding.

Good Vibrations:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-963CTDLy68

Good Reads: Cod  by Mark Kurlansky

Secret o' Life

may my heart always be open to little

birds who are the secrets of living

whatever they sing is better than to know

and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry

and fearless and thirsty and supple

and even if it's sunday may i be wrong

for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully

and love yourself so more than truly 

there's never been quite such a fool who could fail

pulling all the sky over him with one smile 

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

E.E. Cummings, 1904-1962, Complete Poems 

Bird Eggs

The entire range of eggshell colors and markings of bird eggs is the result of just two pigments—one that’s reddish-brown and another that’s bluish-green. Red the whole story:                                                     https://www.audubon.org/news/cracking-code-egg-coloration

Good Vibrations:  http://bit.ly/1JlF8gs

Up From the Skies

                                                              Photo: Nightskyhunter.com 

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,                

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.    

(From: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,  Wm. Wordsworth, 1770-1850 )

Noctilucent Clouds

Noctilucent  clouds (NLC) are located in the earth’s Mesosphere at a height of 82km, unlike ‘normal’ clouds which form in the Troposphere. Their name originates from Latin, meaning, ‘night shining’) and are also known as Polar Mesospheric Clouds. Little is known about them, and the current consensus among scientists is that they are composed of meteoritic dust particles encased in ice crystals. Temperatures in the mesosphere are -100°C, and what little water is found there immediately freezes around the dust particles, which act as ‘seeds.’ Through the process of nucleation, the clouds drop to a lower altitude and are then visible. Exciting and mysterious, NLC are best seen during the summer months at latitudes north or south between 50° and 65°.

Good Vibrations:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcrEqIpi6sg 

Baby, It's Cold Outside

‘’The Winter Evening’’

American Winter Scene  Currier & Ives 

O winter, ruler of the inverted year...

I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st,

And dreaded as thou art!...I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness,

And all the comforts that the lowly roof 

of  undisturb’d retirement, and the hours 

Of long uninterrupted evening, knows.                                                    William Cowper 1785  

The Little Ice Age

Lasting from the early 14th century until the mid-19th century, the ‘Little Ice Age’ was disastrous on a global scale.  From the 1620’s until the 1690’s, longer winters and cooler summers disrupted growing seasons and destroyed harvests across Europe; the coast of Iceland was so blocked by ice that no ships could dock. Most of the rivers in Europe froze over and ice on the Baltic Sea was thick enough to walk from one side to the other.

Good Vibrations:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmWvR-kdnCo

Going, Going, Gone

The Sixth Extinction 

Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis)

Our envelope, as I have called it, the cultural insulation that separates us from nature, is rather like the window of a lit-up railway carriage at night. Most of the time it is a mirror of our own concerns, including our concern about nature.

                                     

                        

Auroch (Bos taurus primigenius)

As a mirror, it fills us with the sense that the world is something which exists primarily in reference to us: it was created for us; we are the centre of it and the whole point of its existence. 

Wooly rhino (Coelodonta Antiquitatis)

 But occasionally the mirror turns into a real window through which we can see only the vision of an indifferent nature that goes along for untold aeons of time without us, seems to have produced us only by accident, and, if it were conscious, could only regret having done so
Northrop Frye, Creation & Recreation  

                                                          
                                                                                                            

 Good Reads: The Sixth Extinction  by Richard Leakey

Good Vibrations:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njtM09ki5nY